The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) together with the South African National Parks celebrated the milestone of the completion of the Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden, at Sendelingsdrif in the Richtersveld National Park on 20 August 2024.
The botanical garden was established through a partnership between SANBI and South African National Parks (SANParks), in terms of which a management plan for the Richtersveld National Park was drawn up. The park is South Africa’s first contractual park, and the agreement assigns responsibility for it jointly to SANBI, SANParks and the Richtersveld community. One of the agreed actions on the management plan was to establish an indigenous plant nursery at the national park’s Sendelingsdrif rest camp. What emerged from this decision is the new Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden.
The Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden consists of an extensive nursery at Sendelingsdrift and a variety of demonstration gardens established around the main rest camps in the park.
The Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden will serve as a living archive of South Africa’s unique and extraordinarily rich Desert Biome flora. At least 5 600 of the 8 000 plant species found in this biome are endemic to this region of the Northern Cape
The establishment of the garden is in line with SANBI’s Garden Expansion Programme which supports the Global Biodiversity Framework target to increase protected areas to 30 percent by 2030. It brings SANBI closer to its goal to have at least one botanical garden in each province and covering all the biomes – distinct geographical regions with specific climates, vegetation and animal life – that are found in the country.
SANBI is the only institution in South Africa mandated, through the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, to manage, maintain and develop national botanical gardens. Establishing the Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden contributes to SANBI’s goal to develop a botanical garden in each of the two biomes that had no formal representation in South Africa’s network of botanical gardens: the Desert Biome and the Indian Ocean Coastal Belt Biome.
The Garden lies within the 6 045km2 ǀAi-ǀAis/Richtersveld Transfrontier Park that straddles South Africa and Namibia and was proclaimed in 1991. The South African part of the trans frontier park forms the buffer zone of the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 2007. It is home to the unique culture of the semi-nomadic Nama people.
The Desert Biome is South Africa’s second-smallest biome after the Forest Biome, and the Richtersveld is the meeting place of the Namib, Gariep and Namaqualand bioregions. The national park encompasses three of South Africa’s nine biomes – the Fynbos Biome, the Succulent Karoo Biome and the Desert Biome. The park is also home to about 30% of all succulents found in South Africa and is, without a doubt, one of the richest localities for succulents anywhere in the world.
In the garden, visually attractive information boards, panels and plant labels offer information on the local geology, culture and heritage (including plant use) of the Richtersveld community and phytogeography. They also inform viewers about the Desert Biome, natural history, plant adaptations, survival strategies, endemism and climate and seasonal flower displays. A bird list was also compiled.
Curators and staff from the Karoo Desert and Kirstenbosch national botanical gardens provided horticultural expertise and material, assistance and maintenance support to those developing the Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden. It is envisioned that the Sendelingsdrif nursery and the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in Worcester will be the main plant production nurseries, providing SANBI with a constant supply of plants and ensuring that backup plant collections are in existence for future conservation and research purposes
Self-catering accommodation is available at SANParks’ Sendelingsdrif rest camp in the Richtersveld National Park. The RDBG is open to day visitors. Bookings can be done through the SANParks website at www.sanparks.org.